


All Good Things

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 366 [36]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 20th Century, Death from Old Age, Embarrassment, Emotions, England (Country), F/M, Family, Gay Sex, Happy Ending, Heaven, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Minor Character Death, Panties, Picnics, Retirement, Sussex, United States, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28649100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: The Complete Cases Of Sherlock Holmes And John Watson. All 366 cases plus assorted interludes, hiatuses, codas &c.1936-1939. All good things must indeed come to an end, even these two. But at least they depart with all the propriety and decorum that... why are you shaking your head like that?Oh I forgot, you know them. And you're so right!
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherrinford Holmes/Victor Trevor
Series: Elementary 366 [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555741
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Contents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ravenwings334](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenwings334/gifts), [Tipsylex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsylex/gifts).



** 1936 **

**Coda: Hill Cottage Redux**  
by Mr. Sherrinford Holmes, Esquire  
_Sherrinford and his lover go to heaven – where the humour sucks!_

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** 1939 **

**Coda: The Picnic**  
by Mr. Ivan Watson, Esquire  
_John's son and his family enjoy a picnic on the Downs_

 **Elementary: The Eve Of The War**  
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_The end of Johnlock – on earth, at least_

 **Elementary: Sherlock II**  
by Doctor Luke Watson, M.D.  
_Being dead does not stop SOME relatives from being embarrassing!_

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	2. Coda: Hill Cottage Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1936\. Japes in the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW. Mention of suicide.

_[Narration by Mr. Sherrinford Holmes, Esquire]_

Contrary to what they say, quite a few prayers do get answered. _Even if some people up here have a terrible sense of humour!_

When you love someone as much as I loved Vic, the one cloud that always lurks in the blue skies of your happiness is what will happen when, inevitably, one of you gets taken before the other. Fortunately having the Sight enabled me to prepare for and effectively counter that, especially when my love, despite having just passed eighty, decided on a long walk up the steep hill near our home. I knew what that would do to him so I insisted on going with him, and when his brave heart gave out having made the summit, I lay there with him and waited for the final sleep to claim us both. Which it did.

I got a bit of a ticking-off from St. Peter for arriving before I was due, but he explained that I had been given the Sight for the specific reason of keeping an eye on my clever twin who was due here in a few years' time. It would have been longer but he like me had prayed not to be parted from the man he loved for even a day, and without my advantages Heaven had very generously agreed to that request (although of course they had not communicated that fact to him). Like the painting which he had seen just before his retirement had begun, it would indeed be the eve of the war when he left Earth for the last time.

In the meantime I had Vic and our own hillside cottage, although if I ever find out which smart-arse up here decided to put the name 'Hill Cottage' (the original name of Sherlock's place before it became 'Elementary') on the front, then wings or no wings I am going to deck them! Vic of course found it hilarious – being dead does not seem to have improved his so-called sense of humour, worse luck! - so I took him inside and then fucked him repeatedly until he stopped smirking. Which he eventually did.

The joys of heaven. Endless energy to deal definitively with mirthful mountaineers! And I found out that those fluffy white wings of his are extremely sensitive in some areas.... let alone what happened when I caressed his halo!

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	3. Coda: The Picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1939\. A picnic on the downs, as war once again draws nigh.

_[Narration by Mr. Ivan Watson, Esquire]_

I sighed as I stared out across the Downs. It was good to get away from the house for a while, and on this warm summer's day there were several families enjoying picnics on the hills overlooking the town below. Down there life went on normally – but for how much longer?

I have to admit that I had been surprised when our utterly useless prime minister Mr. Neville Chamberlain had finally if belatedly made a stand against the rapacious Herr Hitler of Germany, the scum who had gobbled up the Rhineland, his native Austria, the Sudetenland and the rump Czechoslovakia unopposed, and was now threatening Poland. I suspected (cynically, Anne said, but accurately) that Chamberlain had only acted in the belief that Berlin would never attack Warsaw because of the threat from Soviet Russia beyond it. But if the rumours coming out of eastern Europe about a deal between the rival vermin were to be believed, that theory was about to go up in smoke along with the all too brief peace after what should have been the war to end all wars - and which had so nearly ended me.

My ever-efficient wife was marshalling the family for the meal and I smiled at her in thanks. Earlier Luke and I had taken his three boys over to see the old reprobates. My father had not blubbered at all at our telling him that our latest arrival was now officially John Watson II, and the only bad moment had been when young Sherlock had asked why we had to wait for so long outside the cottage before going in, and worse, had looked damn suspiciously at us when we had been unable to answer! The two rapscallions had declined my invitation to join us because... I knew damn well why and so did not want to think about it! Over eighty the pair of them and still as bad as ever!

The second Sherlock was already growing into the image of his namesake a quiet, serious boy far from the standard loud three-year-old. I watched as he was stood staring out across the Downs and a girl of a similar age from the family some yards away from us wandered over in his direction....

_Was she simpering at him? She was, damnation!_

I chuckled to myself. I could just imagine my father rolling his eyes when I told him that later. Some things in this fast-changing world stayed the same, thankfully.

I could not know then that I would see neither my dear father nor his faithful friend ever again.

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	4. Elementary: The Eve Of The War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1939\. Sometimes you need a guardian angel to pull the right levers, and ensure the happiest of happy endings.

[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]

I suppose that, for a man over eighty years old (a great age for those times) I should have been more prepared. But when I went to our bedroom that evening and found the man that I loved more than life itself lying cold and still, I broke. I knew that John was two and half years older than me and logically I supposed that I had expected him to go first, but now what? How was I meant to carry on without him? I could not, I just could not!

I pulled on my coat and went outside, uncaring of the cold evening air. War with Herr Hitler's Germany had finally broken out and next week would be my eighty-fifth birthday – but what did I have to live for now that the man I loved was gone? 

We had been so happy these last few weeks, especially when John's three great-grandsons had come over with their father and grandfather (unannounced, unfortunately, but we had made ourselves decent quite quickly I had thought). It had been so good to see four generations of Watsons in the same room – John, Ivan, Luke (who was training to be a doctor just like his grandfather) and Luke's sons Sherlock, Hamon and John. My great-grandson and namesake was very much the image of me despite being only three years old, and he had given me what had been a decidedly uncomfortable knowing look when we had finally let them all in.

John's son had been worried that a fellow that he knew down at the garage had been sacked after having been thrown out of his house when his wife had decided to leave him for someone else, and I had promised to arrange for a new house for the victim, a Mr. Lawrence Lamb, which I had been able to do via the wonders of the telephone. It was good to spread a little happiness around; what else was money for?

The sun was setting and the skies over Chuffingden were an angry red except for a single break in the clouds that, bizarrely, shone down to a spot by our front gate. Guiding my love's way to Heaven, I thought, remembering that painting we had seen in Mr. Galahad LeStrade's art gallery in London over thirty-five years ago. 'The Eve Of The War' indeed....

“Hullo, brother.”

I blinked. The patch of light was suddenly occupied by a familiar yet impossible figure.

_“Sherrinford?”_

I stared at him incredulously. My brother had died nearly three years ago, just after the terrible Abdication Crisis that had spared us from the vile King Edward the Eighth; I remembered the telegram saying that he and Victor had been found holding each other on a mountainside and the letter left for me, telling me that he would....”

“Go on ahead”, he smiled (I _hated_ it when someone read my mind!).

Only then did I realize a second impossibility; he was exactly the same as when we had first met in Inverwick over half a century ago. He had not changed much by the last time I had seen him in Suffolk some eighteen years after that, but now he was.... well, he was unchanged after half a century!

Except, possibly, for a pair of ethereal white wings hanging behind him and a halo whose light shone down on him. I did not need to be any sort of detective to work that one out.

“You are dead!” I exclaimed.

He grinned at me. 

“Remember what I also told you?” he asked.

I struggled to recall his words.

“You said that you would see me again one day....” I began before slowly (far too slowly even given the circumstances) I got it.

_“So, brother, are you!”_

I looked at him in bewilderment.

“Heaven does not leave quite everything to chance, brother”, he smiled. “Someone who was set to do as much good as you for Mankind – we decided to give you your own guardian angel, a wise precaution given your tendency to endanger both you and your beloved at every opportunity.“

I continued to just stare at him, speechless, although I was dimly aware that the dark clouds behind him were swiftly clearing.

“The good doctor was fated to die shortly after Vic”, he explained, “and you would have outlived him by nearly six years. So Heaven 'averaged things out' in order that you could leave this world together. Talking of which....”

He gestured behind him and I turned to see the most glorious sight in my entire life (yes, I _know_ that I was dead; it is called artistic licence!). John, my beloved John, as young as that fateful first day when he and I had met in Stamford's room at Oxford over six decades ago, a John whose soul shone brighter than the brightest star. My life, my love, my all. 

“Sherlock”, he yawned as he scratched his head, “why are you up so early? And what are you doing out.....?”

My brother had with exquisite timing made himself scarce; I so owed him for that. I smiled at my love and waited for him to realize the truth. He squinted at me, looked down at himself, then back at me again. A slow smile creased his gloriously handsome features and he waggled his eyebrows at me in a way that was only going to lead to one thing.

“Well, while we are still here....”

Apparently Heaven was going to have to wait.

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Some time later we returned to our room to arrange our former bodies and I smiled across at my love. He crossed to the panty draw, opened it and waggled his eyebrows again.

Apparently Heaven was going to have to wait some more!

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Finally the two of us went out into the now dark garden. Chuffingden lay quiet and undisturbed far below, slumbering under a night-blue sky from which all the clouds seemed to have fled. I looked at my love and smiled at him as we said goodbye to our home for the last time, and moved towards our future. Together, forever and always, Sherlock and John.

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We both stared in surprise at the sight before us.

“They really do have pearly gates up here?” John asked. 

“We do now”, said a twin that I was not so sure about any more, especially if he kept popping up behind me and making me jump like that, let alone wearing something that had better damn well not be a smirk. “We never did, but so many people came to expect them that we had to have them installed. Narrative causality.”

“What?” John asked.

“Reality conforming to the pressure of expectations”, my brother explained. “This is the special entrance; we have a second for most people and a third with a special trap-door for those we want to make suffer by showing them what they could have got had they been a better person before they take the long drop to the nether regions.”

 _“We_ are special!” John grinned.

“You certainly made us wait long enough!” my brother snipped, making my beloved blush fiercely. I may also have turned very slightly red and someone could stop looking so damn knowing!

My twin walked round to the side of a small lectern and pulled a large metal lever. There was a mechanical sound from nearby – odd, I thought considering that we were floating on clouds. Then a familiar solid black figure rose majestically out of the clouds and... all that moisture was bound to make someone's eyes start watering.

John prowled delightedly round the Charger. The gates had opened and we got into the car as the gates creaked open. 

“Ready for eternity?” John grinned.

I smiled and reached across to take his lover by the hand. 

“Hey! Bad dead consulting detective!”

Alright, maybe a little lower than the hand. My twin shook his head at us. 

“Time to hit the road!” I said. “Our cottage – _and our bed!_ – awaits.”

The Charger rolled forward smoothly and just moments later was parked outside a very familiar cottage. We kissed before getting out and went inside, into a perfect copy of our old home down to the bees and the blue shed (complete with its light). Sherlock and John, together forever. It was as it always would be... elementary!

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	5. Elementary: Sherlock II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1939\. Just remember, that inheritance might just come with a surprise bonus!

[Narration by Doctor Luke Watson, M.D.]

I looked around the cottage and smiled. It was so very both of my late grandfathers.

“It's far better than our house”, I said to Sarah who was placing little Johnnie in his cot. “And it's a good thing that we inherited the car as well, being so far from the town and the nearest railway-station.”

“It's definitely a place fitted out for two gentlemen”, she agreed, “but it will make a good home for us.”

I knew the unspoken fact behind her words, namely that after Johnnie's difficult birth the doctors had advised us against having any more children. But with three sons two of whom were named after my grandfathers who had lived and loved in this place, the Watson line seemed safe enough let alone all our cousins. Little Hamon tottered along after his mother - “I _am_ two, daddy; I can walk on my own!” - and Johnnie was already asleep bless him, so I looked round for our eldest son.

“Where's Sherlock?” I asked.

“Probably like his famous namesake, investigating”, she smiled. “You know what he's like.”

The subject of our conversation came in from the garden at that moment, holding what looked like a display plaque. Then he turned it around – and I so, so wished to be a thousand miles away!

“Daddy”, the boy said frowning, “why has someone put ladies' underwear on this wooden thing?”

Gwen falling about laughing was no help either. I sighed; even in death those two rapscallions were a total embarrassment!

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End file.
